Changes in Live 9 Audio Effects which do not provide a Legacy Mode

Live Versions: 9

Operating System: All

Saturator

The fade curve for the Dry/Wet control of the Saturator Audio Effect has changed from Equal Power to Equal Gain in Live 9.

An Equal Power crossfade is recommended for audio material that isn't phase-coherent. Here, in a crossfade between two different types of material, the overall volume will be maintained through the crossfade.

An Equal Gain crossfade, by contrast, is recommended for audio material that is likely to be phase-coherent, such as two loops of the same sound - or the Dry/Wet stages of an effect. If you used an Equal Power crossfade in this situation, you could get a sudden sound level boost through the crossfade.

This means that if you had a track processed by the Saturator Audio Effect in a Live Set created with Live 8, you will experience a -3dB level change when opening that Live Set or when importing that specific track into Live 9.

Compressor with Release and Threshold mapped to Macros

As part of the Compressor overhaul in Live 9, we changed the curve for the Release and Threshold parameters so that there is a better distribution of "useful" values over the entire parameter range.

If these parameters have been assigned to Macros in a Live Set created with Live 8, Release and Threshold will not match with the original settings when opening this Live Set or importing that specific track into Live 9.

As a workaround, we recommend removing those parameters from the Macros in Live 8 and saving the Set with a different name. At this point, opening the Live Set in Live 9 will work smoothly and no changes will happen in the Compressor settings.

This change shouldn't affect Compressors without Macro mappings. Also automations should play back the same in Live 8 and Live 9.

Using the Live 8 Compressor in Live 9

Whenever you load a Live Set created with Live 8 in Live 9, any Compressor device loaded with the Set will show an Upgrade button in the device header.

Opening a Live 8 Set in Live 9: note the Upgrade button on the Compressor's device header.

Clicking the Upgrade button immediately switches the device to the new Live 9 Compressor.

If for some reason you like using the Live 8 version of the Ableton Live Compressor instead, and would like to load this version also in other Sets, just save a Live 8 Compressor preset into your User Library once.

Saving the Live 8 Compressor as a preset allows you to recall this device anytime in Live 9.

EQ Eight

Specifically, we have implemented a new shelving filter which has been built in collaboration with Cytomic. We also changed the EQ curve that is displayed to better represent the effect the EQ has on the audio signal.

When opening a Live Set created with Live 8 where an EQ Eight shelving filter is enabled, you'll notice a few differences.

The EQ Eight with a shelving filter active in Live 8

And here the same Live Set, this time opened in Live 9. Note the slightly different curve.

As said above, the visual change should not imply any audible difference in this case.

As for the shelving filter, we provide a switchable legacy mode in order to preserve the sound of the EQ Eight for Sets created with Live 8. Right-click on the EQ Eight device header in Live 9 and select "Shelf Scaling Legacy Mode" to enable it.

This setting causes the new Live 9 EQ Eight to emulate the behavior of the Live 8 EQ Eight shelving filter.

Since this filter has actually been completely reworked, the legacy mode will not exactly match the sound of its predecessor. In any case, while there is indeed a scientific difference, after a series of critical listening tests we judged this difference to be inaudible.